note
chromatic
The most important part of this is testing. Test, test, test.
<p>
If you don't know what your code is supposed to do, if you can't verify that it does what it's supposed to do, you can't ever refactor it. That's a problem.
<p>
A normal programming language gives you different ways to solve the same problem. Perl gives you more. If you've done a reasonably good job of encapsulation, you can often tweak things to improve them.
<p>
You won't be free to do this until you have external verification that the code you modified has the same (good) effect that it did before.
<p>
Refactoring is good. Refactoring without testing is nearly impossible.
<p>
<strong>Update:</strong> Okay, okay. <em>Confident</em> refactoring without testing is difficult. Avoid it if you can.
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